With a strange tourism industry taking root as out-of-towners come to Detroit to see its industrial ruins, the CBC's Brandon Hicks highlighted the fact that the Detroit Red Wings have given a beaten-up city sporting hope--and much-needed bucks:

May 30, CBC Sports: With people out and about for the finals, it means money for the downtown core. A fair bit of it, according to Steve Violetta, senior vice-president of business affairs for the Red Wings. Citing an Anderson Economic Group study done last year, Violetta said that every home game for the Wings in the Stanley Cup final last season was worth $3 million US. That isn't counting the other home dates in the previous three rounds of post-season play.

"We like to think we are one of the good stories that are coming out of Detroit right now," he said. "It's definitely something people can rally around."

Even though the team's highly successful, it's still not immune to what's going on in the city.

"The interest in the Red Wings has never been higher probably than it is right now. You can just tell by the TV numbers," he said, which saw Game 5 against Chicago become the highest-rated show in the history of the television network Versus. "But we've realized that not everybody can afford to come to games anymore," he said. "We're competing with bread and milk now."

Cheli's Chili manager Megan Dieringer agrees...

"It's rough in Detroit," Dieringer said. "After the summer was over we went to limited hours, [because] there's not many people out. It's hard to get people down here to spend their money. We can't argue with anybody on that because we've cut back our menu, trying to save money."

But the Cup finals mean business...

"With these finals coming up we'll have a tent and both floors open," she said. "There will be people out for at least a week and a half."

And a potential Cup cameo:

"The Cup's here at least three or four times before it goes out on the road," Dieringer said.